


Back Onto the Open Road

by mamacyno



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Apology for accidential hit to the face in 2x10, F/M, Forgiveness, Post-Season 2, Spoilers, lyatt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-18
Updated: 2018-05-18
Packaged: 2019-05-08 12:24:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14694183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mamacyno/pseuds/mamacyno
Summary: Lucy & Wyatt have a late night conversation about love, forgiveness and guilt. Includes an apology for the accidental hit to the face in 2x10 and some Wyatt groveling.  Set about a month after 2x10.





	Back Onto the Open Road

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt request from shorthairdontcare22 on Tumblr for the apology for the accidental hit, which I was able to intertwine with some other dialogue musings I had for how Lucy and Wyatt begin to heal their relationship.
> 
> Disclaimer: Timeless' characters own my shipper heart, but I have no claim to them.

It’s almost midnight, and most of the bunker’s inhabitants are asleep after a successful and relatively danger-free trip to 1971 London.  Wyatt quietly makes his way from the bathroom back to the common area enjoying the ambient white noise that he hopes will lull him to sleep.  These are his favorite kind of nights, especially because he’s the one who now regularly sleeps on the Kem Weber sofa in the common area.   It’s a small act of penance that he immediately offered as soon as Rufus returned home, so that he and Jiya could be together as they were meant to be.  And no matter how much sleep Wyatt loses due to his bunkmates’ movie nights or early morning kitchen noises, he will never complain, because his family has forgiven him.  Flynn’s a different story, but he’s also not family as far as Wyatt’s concerned.

Wyatt turns the corner to find Lucy sitting alone at one of the tables.  It’s not a surprise to see her engrossed in an open book with a cup of tea at her fingertips, but what is unexpected is that she’s smiling and completely captivated by what’s on the pages. 

Unable to suppress his curiosity, Wyatt approaches her with a smile beginning to form on his own lips as if Lucy’s happiness is contagious – which it often is.  As he gets closer, he can see that the pages are filled with photographs of women in various dresses and gowns.

“What’s that?”, he asks breaking Lucy out of her reverie.

Lucy looks up at him with her smile still in place.  “It’s a 1940s fashion style book.  Flynn pilfered it from Anna Wintour’s office as we were leaving as a gift for me.”

Wyatt can’t hide his disdain, although even he isn’t sure if it is for Flynn’s little act of thievery to impress Lucy or for himself for not thinking to do the same.  _Her favorite time period_ , he thinks to himself, _of course, he’d play that card_.

“What is it, Wyatt?” There is a hint of annoyance in Lucy’s voice, and Wyatt knows it’s because she knows him too well.  That doesn’t stop him from trying to play it cool though.

“Nothing.  I mean I’m sure that one less book in Anna’s collection didn’t cause her future to change, right?”  Obviously, the key word in this tactic was ‘try’.

“Don’t be petty. He said it caught his eye, and he thought I’d enjoy a new book for my mini library, given that I can’t exactly have Amazon deliver to the bunker.” Lucy knows she’s doing a poor job of keeping her irritability in check, but it has been a while since Wyatt has shown his – what? Jealousy? – of Flynn, and she is not going to tolerate Wyatt being ‘judgey’.

Wyatt takes a breath before speaking.  When it comes to forgiveness, it is rarely immediate, and no one knows that better than Wyatt.  He knows he will be the last one in the team to forgive himself.  He also knows that Lucy is trying to stay on the path to forgiving him, and the last thing he wants to do is make it harder for her to do so by being an ass.  Still, he owes it to her to not withhold his feelings – mostly because that was the advice that Future Wyatt gave him before he and Future Lucy left them.

_“I can’t give you a roadmap for how to make things right with Lucy. Just know that you both want the same thing.  And as long as the two of you don’t hold back from saying what needs to be said, you will find your way back to each other.”_

“I think he’s falling for you… hard,” Wyatt says finally.

Lucy had gone back to thumbing through the pages in the book in an attempt to calm herself and stops mid-page flip as she considers Wyatt’s words. To her surprise, she doesn’t sense any contempt or even jealousy in his statement.  It was just that – a statement.  She looks up at Wyatt, and it is difficult to read his face, except that she can tell he is being honest.

She shakes her head.  “You’re seeing things,” she scoffs, returning her attention to the book and hoping he will drop the subject.  Lucy is still trying to process the peek into her future that Future Wyatt and Lucy left them with, and she really doesn’t want to get anywhere close to another love triangle soap opera ever again.

“I see how he looks at you, and I’m pretty damn sure it’s the same way I look at you,” Wyatt presses unsure of why he’s being _this_ honest.

“So, what? He loves me, too?” Lucy asks bitingly.  Lucy catches herself immediately after the words come out of her mouth and gives Wyatt a look that gives away a tinge of regret for what she said.

Wyatt feels a sting to his heart, but he accepts the pain without complaint, because this punishment is justified. He deserves nothing more and nothing less. Although it has been nearly a month since he told Lucy he loves her, they have not spoken about his declaration since.  If he thought it would help things, he would tell her he loves her every day, but he knows that’s not what she wants or needs.  And so instead, he tries to show her his love through actions rather than words, but he continues to hope that one day she’ll say it to him sincerely and unprompted.

“I don’t know,” he replies simply.

Lucy tucks her hair behind her ear and looks back down at her book.  She runs her hand over the right page of her book that shows a photograph of a model in a knee-length polka-dot dress with a belted waist and cuffed sleeves. When she was younger, she used to long to lose herself in the past, but time has filled the past with too much pain.

Wyatt pulls the chair across from Lucy out from under the table, and the silence in the room is momentarily broken with the sound of metal against concrete.  He takes a seat and rests his hands on the table in front him fighting the urge to reach for her hand.

“I know that Flynn has changed,” Wyatt begins tentatively.  “And I am sure that he’s changed, because of you.  You bring out the best in people, Lucy.  You make people want to be better. It’s your superpower,” he says with a smile.

Lucy doesn’t look up from the book, but her subtle smile is given away by the slight lift in her cheekbones.

“So if Flynn does love you,” Wyatt continues struggling to get the words out that seem to be caught in his throat, “no one can blame him – least of all me.”

After some time, Lucy finally speaks quietly still not looking up, “I don’t want to be loved.”

Wyatt looks at her with a confused and concerned look on his face.

Lucy finally lifts her head but focuses her glance off to the side at some random object in the kitchen.  “People I’ve loved and who say they love me have brought me so much pain.  My mother kidnapped me and allowed Rittenhouse to drug me repeatedly while she tried to brainwash me for over a month.  She allowed my sister – the one person who truly loved me unconditionally - to remain wiped from existence, so that she could try to prolong her life and pursue her dream of getting me to join her cult.  My father arranged for Homeland Security to recruit me, so that I could travel through time risking my life on a regular basis, thus putting an end to my teaching career.” 

Lucy finally turns to look at Wyatt but doesn’t continue talking.  Her eyes say it all though.

“And then I came along,” he offers, voicing her thoughts.

Lucy only nods not wanting to rehash every painful moment that happened yet again with him.

 _“Give yourself time to grieve,”_ Future Lucy had advised her, _“but don’t cut him out of the process entirely. You need to tell him how much it hurt, so that it’s said, and he understands.  If you try to bury it or hold it in to spare his feelings, you’ll just become bitter and resentful.  Resentment is poison, and so is guilt. Help him overcome his guilt so that you can both get back onto that open road together.”_

It was the hardest advice Lucy ever tried to follow, but she followed it, because she knew in her heart that she had seen the future she wanted.  So, she and Wyatt talked – a lot, but she continued to hold back physically and emotionally.  She was still in self-preservation mode, and judging from Future Lucy’s physical appearance, survival mode was going to remain a constant going forward.  She only hoped that her heart would soon be strong enough to stand on its own.

“All this time,” Wyatt says interrupting her thoughts, “I’ve been trying to protect you from Flynn, because he was dangerous, but I was just as much a threat to you emotionally and physically.”

“Physically?”, Lucy repeats quizzically.

“I hit you. I hurt you.”

The memory of that day floods vividly from Lucy’s hippocampus against her will. She had buried that memory almost to the point of repression.  She shakes her head slowly and silently not wanting to remember it.  The accidental punch had hurt, of course, but the emotional impact hit her in her core. Unable to put the memory back in its box, Lucy relents to addressing it.

“Wyatt, do you know why I tried to stop you and Flynn from fighting?”

“To protect Flynn?”, Wyatt asks honestly.

“No, you idiot,” Lucy says affectionately, “I was trying to protect _you_. I could see in your eyes that you were starting to spiral downward with guilt.  If you were alone, you probably would have lashed out and punched a wall, but as soon as Flynn started talking, you decided to use his face instead. I was trying to stop you from doing something you’d regret, but I also needed you to focus on the team and finding Jiya, so that we could save our family from falling apart – including you.”

Hearing Lucy’s recollection compounds the guilt Wyatt had already been feeling, but he also realizes that it was his guilt that ultimately put Lucy in the line of fire that day.  The revelation is a lot to process, and there is a time and place for that, but right now, there is something more important to do and say.

“Lucy, I’m so sorry.  I know you’re probably tired of hearing me say that over and over this past month, and I will never stop being sorry for how much I hurt you.  But you getting hurt at my hand? That’s a line that should never be crossed, and I don’t think I can ever forgive myself for that.”

Lucy reaches across the table for Wyatt’s hand, and he eagerly holds her soft palm against his.  It’s the first proactive sign of affection toward him that she’s made in weeks, and he accepts it like a lifebuoy.

“Wyatt, you need to start forgiving yourself. We can’t move forward, if you don’t, because your guilt will weigh us down,” she tells him emphatically.

Tears pool in Wyatt’s eyes as he nods in agreement.

Lucy squeezes his hand tighter and continues, “And I appreciate that your instinct is to protect me, but shit happens, and when it does, you need to remember that I am not some fragile flower.  I am a strong-willed, resilient woman, who apparently is going to learn how to kick some serious ass someday, so you better watch out.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Wyatt responds with a small smile.  He reaches out his other hand to cradle hers and ventures to raise her hand to his lips to place a small kiss on her fingers.  He continues to hold her hand close to his mouth and is heartened that she doesn’t move to pull it back.  He’s tempted to remind her again that he loves her, but instead he opts to remain relishing in this quiet moment holding each other’s gaze.

Lucy lets out a small sigh, but with a sincere smile. “Careful, Master Sergeant. Keep it up, and you may get me to believe in love again.”

**Author's Note:**

> A/N - I know that people were very upset about "the punch" scene, and rightfully so. I cried out when I saw that scene. It shook me, and it still hits me in the pit of my stomach. But I saw on Twitter that some people called out the writers for giving in to the “female victim of violence” trope. From a screenwriting perspective, I didn’t see it completely that way. I saw it as a way to quickly put a stop the fist fight between Wyatt and Flynn so that the episode could progress. I saw Lucy's reaction as strong and (at the time) justifiably unforgiving. Granted, they could have had Rufus take the punch instead, but the emotional weight of Lucy being on the receiving end was so much more impactful, because that's what made Wyatt snap out of his guilt-driven rage.
> 
> In any case, I hope you enjoyed this fic. Thank you for reading!


End file.
